


Azula, Dismantled

by ClammyHandsCayenne



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Freedom, Gen, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25854673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClammyHandsCayenne/pseuds/ClammyHandsCayenne
Summary: A one shot look into Azula's mind when she gives herself a haircut.
Kudos: 17





	Azula, Dismantled

"You always had such beautiful hair.."

* * *

She supposed it started with a haircut. She was looking at herself in the mirror blankly, hair hanging in limp curls past her shoulders, stopping midway down her back. She had never thought a lot about her hair. She would get the ends trimmed and washed and pulled up and back by hands that were not her own. She ran her own fingers through it now, pulling and pushing it up and down and back and up and down and back, remembering why it was she never bothered to touch it herself; it had a mind of its own, tangling and curling as it pleased. The fact was she couldn’t even say that about herself, and that made her angry. There was better hair, she mused, glaring at it now; prettier, longer, curlier, thicker, but she was staring at it with a feral intensity. For some reason, she suddenly thought about how her mother used to compliment it, and _that_ filled her with rage.

She took a pair of scissors and cut it in half, and as she watched the strands drop unceremoniously around her, she felt some kind of release that she couldn’t name. She had never been a particularly impulsive person, but she was getting older and angrier and changing in ways she was only just beginning to identify. She stared blankly at the strands she butchered and could only wonder at how she didn’t feel anything for the loss. With a sigh, she figured it was time to put away childish things like long hair and compliments and indecision.

_Ah_ , she realized, the light bulb flickering on in her brain, as she stared at the uneven mass of cropped hair, _reckless abandon_.

She had never acted on it before and decided it was the closest to describing the unnameable, clawing feeling that worked its way through her. That feeling crawled lower and filled a part of her with a morbid pride. _She_ did this. This was _her_ mess. She felt strangely proud sitting among the haphazard strands of unwashed hair. She continued to watch herself in the mirror. Her hair really did look terrible. (It almost sounded like a compliment). The thought should’ve bothered her, but it slithered around in that morbid place and settled quite comfortably against her pride. She was, in a word, _unmade_.

**Author's Note:**

> I think Azula was a fascinating character and always will be. She deserved better.


End file.
